On 28-Jul-99 darkknight wrote:
> What I would want the sound card for is LInux, as I do not use Windows at
> all
> any longer. My main interrest's would be good midi file playback as well as
> good mp3 file playback. I had heard that with there earlier releases,
> Creative
> still had not got the midi or mp3 playback working that well. So my main
> concerne is how they got the midi and mp3 sound working. As far as normal
> system sounds, such as .au .wav .voc etc. my SB16 can even handle that well
> enough, my only reason for buying the SB Live would be for improved midi and
> mp3 playback. Can you give me any advice in that area?
mp3's are just very compressed wav's, so if your mp3's sound poor it is
probably more likely heavy CPU usage (the CPU is used constantly during mp3
playback, working on decompressing the mp3 as it's played), a problem during
the ripping or encoding of the mp3, or maybe just a low bitrate. An SB16
should be enough for your mp3's to sound nearly as good as an audio CD played
in your CD-ROM drive... depending on the bitrate the mp3 is encoded at, of
course.
As for midi's... I guess there are lots of cards that are newer now, but I am
pretty happy with my SB AWE64. Nice, typical, widely used sound card that (for
me) sndconfig has no trouble setting up.
-Tom
